


The Fire that Burns

by Wynn



Series: Alternate World, Alternate Age [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Complicated Relationships, Drama & Romance, King Victor Nikiforov, Long-Haired Katsuki Yuuri, Lord Commander Yuuri, M/M, Referenced Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin, Reunions, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 08:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: The songs will sing of them, the starlight King and the Lord Commander who watches the night. They will sing of their love, of their separation at the cruel hand of fate, and of their triumph over all obstacles, both living and dead.He was no longer Yuuri of House Katsuki. He was a man of the Night’s Watch, from that day forward until his last. But now Viktor was here. His old life was here. The dissonance between the old Viktor that Yuuri had preserved in memory and the new one now here at the Wall stuns Yuuri nearly beyond belief. He can’t not look, he can’t not stare, his eyes opening and sliding sidelong toward Viktor once more. The change in him is startling. From snowfall to ice shard, starshine to moonlight. Viktor had always been intelligent, had always been dignified, but he’d been mercurial too, whimsical and mischievious, as quick to smile as he was with his sword. Now the weight of the crown grounds him. He is still not of this world, that had not changed, but he no longer flitted through it. He strode, his head held high and his eyes intent in their focus and keen in their assessment.How disappointing, Yuuri thinks, the image he must present to Viktor now.





	The Fire that Burns

**Author's Note:**

> So I created this November 2017, brainstormed a bit at the end of 2017, worked on it some in April 2018, again in November 2018, and then started again steadily in May 2019. For those of you wondering about the next chapter of "Sixty Impossible Things," it's in draft form. I struggled to write it, stopped writing for a while in the spring, and then started working on this fic in a desperate need to be writing something. The muse flowed here, so I followed it. I like what I've written here. Hence, posting.
> 
> In this fic, Yuuri and Viktor are just a year apart. Also, Yuri does not appear directly, but he is referenced frequently, and a letter he wrote is a major part of the fic. I’ve mixed a bit of Jon Snow’s story into Yuuri’s, but the circumstances of him joining the Night’s Watch, as well as of the relationship between the Night’s Watch and the rest of Westeros, is different. Also, I've modified the concept of a White Walker a bit; their touch can burn, like an ice burn but more intense. Finally, Hasetsu Isle = Sapphire Isle in GoT, Petersburg = Winterfell. King's Landing is the capital, and the Red Keep is the name of the capital's castle.

_Night gathers, and now my watch begins._  
_It shall not end until my death._  
_I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children._  
_I shall wear no crowns and win no glory._  
_I shall live and die at my post._  
_I am the sword in the darkness._  
_I am the watcher on the walls._  
_I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men._  
_I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come._  
\- The Night’s Watch vow, _A Song of Ice and Fire_

-

It is not night, though the days grow shorter as summer dies and winter finally comes, yet Yuuri still stands in darkness as he waits, the Wall casting a long and deep shadow across Castle Black.

He watches the gate to the Castle creak open. Behind him stand his men, few in number, fewer than they need with the threat looming beyond the Wall, but there are few who are crazy enough to abandon all hope of a warm and happy life for one of cold service and brutal death. Only criminals seeking a path from the executioner’s sword, or the sons of the whores in Mole’s Town seeking a life from the brothel, or Northern boys seeking vengeance on the Free Folk for their desperate raids. At times, the second or third or fourth son of a notable lord in a notable House make their way to the Wall seeking some scrap of glory, believing in the songs as Yuuri believed, and they bring the training Yuuri needs, Minami and his archery or Seung-Gil and his skill with medicine.

There are none, though, like Yuuri, who fled to the Wall for love.

Beside him, Minami shifts in place. His excitement is palpable, though singular. The rest of the man stand silent and surly and still, too cold and tired and worn from the past year to generate any enthusiasm, not even for the King.

It is not the King that charges first through the open gate. Yuuri had foreseen this, had even warned his men, but most still scatter at the sight of the massive direwolf pounding through the gate. Even Seung-Gil, ever stalwart and stoic, retreats.

Yuuri does not.

He remains where he stands, and he smiles.

Makkachin yips as he sights Yuuri and barrels forward. Yuuri braces himself for impact, but he still stumbles back when Makkachin reaches him. He’s bigger than the last time Yuuri saw him, chest high now, all rippling muscle and soft, sandy fur. All rippling, wiggling muscle as he squirms and wags and circles and nudges and licks and pants and whines before Yuuri. He goes still as soon as Yuuri touches him, as he soon as he starts scratching behind Makka’s right ear, his favorite spot if Yuuri recalls true. And he must for Makkachin burrows into him, head rubbing against Yuuri’s chest, nose nuzzling into his arm. Old endearments slip forth then, praises that declare Makkachin to be the best boy in all of Westeros, the most beautiful, the wisest and the strongest. 

The words tremble. _Yuuri_ trembles. Four years. He had been sure that Makkachin would forget him, perhaps even hate him, the link between him and Viktor more than simple pet and master. _He is of my soul_ , Viktor had said once. _As are-_

A flash of white snatches Yuuri from the past. A white horse, too pure and bright for the dull expanse before the gate, but then Viktor always had been brighter than any vista, day or night, his long hair like starlight and his eyes the color of the sunlit sky. 

Yuuri closes his eyes and prepares himself.

“Y-Your Grace,” Minami stutters a few feet to his right. “W-Welcome to C-C-Castle Black.”

“Thank you.”

Viktor says nothing else. Neither does Minami. Neither does anyone. The silence stretches, the moment pulled taut. They are waiting for him, Yuuri knows. His men and Viktor too. They all wait for him, wait for the Lord Commander to officially greet the King of Westeros. Yuuri pries another few seconds from them, shielding himself in Makkachin as he tries to gather both peace of mind and heart.

When he feels he has claimed all he can, he opens his eyes and steps back from Makkachin. His hand falls by instinct to his sword, his strength and salvation time and again in the long dark of night.

He only realizes his error when he hears a soft catch of breath, and though it has been four long years, Yuuri still knows exactly to whom the breath belongs.

Foolish. He’d been so foolish. He’d had years to change the pommel, to ask Bran the blacksmith to hew him a new one, one less burdened by memory. But he hadn’t. Yuuri had left the sword as it is, as Viktor had ordered it made, Valyrian steel capped by a wolf, a white wolf, a direwolf, the sigil for House Nikiforov, for Viktor himself.

Makkachin moves then, circling around Yuuri, weaving between him and Viktor. Another second slips by. Yuuri hears susurrus of shuffling feet, his men baffled by his hesitance, and this cannot be, not now, not with what lurks beyond the Wall, so Yuuri draws in a breath and lifts his head and-

He cut his hair.

Viktor cut his hair.

Yuuri gapes. Viktor sits as regal as always, and as beautiful, but less ephemeral now, less ethereal than when his stardust hair flowed long behind him and gleamed and gleamed and gleamed. Now it ends in a sharp line beneath his eye, sword sharp, formidable and bold. Then all Yuuri sees is blue, the blue of the sky above them, and of Hasetsu, of the surrounding sapphire sea, as Viktor lifts his eyes from the sword and its traitorous pommel and looks, finally, at Yuuri. 

His breath catches again as he does, but Viktor gives no other reaction to the scars that mar Yuuri’s face. Seung-Gil had tried his best, but nothing could mitigate the damage. The White Walker had held on too long, too intent upon slaying Yuuri as he had the late Lord Commander, and his icy touch had burned. Two fingers, two slashes, two ugly marks extending from Yuuri’s left temple and across his cheek, and then a third, the bastard’s thumb, cutting in from there and ending at the bow of Yuuri’s lips. Yuuri’s beard hid nothing either, the touch of the White Walker deadening his skin and preventing any concealable growth along the scars.

Perhaps he should have mentioned them in his official report, but he hadn’t, succumbing again to foolishness, to the need for Viktor to remember him as he was. But now Viktor knows and, more than that he sees, he sees how Yuuri had failed, how he had almost died. 

Heart pounding, Yuuri averts his gaze. He hides his cowardice in the bow he should have given the moment he lifted his head. “Your Grace. Welcome to Castle Black.” The words come steady, moreso than Yuuri thought they would, moreso than the rest of him is. He rises from his bow and turns swiftly toward Minami, who still gawks at the King. “Minami, please show his Grace to his chambers and provide him anything that he needs.”

Then coward that he is, that he’s always been, Yuuri flees.

*

His flight only lasts an hour, his presence required at the feast to welcome the King. The meal is coarse yet warm, a true meal of the Wall. Yuuri worried that Viktor would spurn the stew or the plain black bread that accompanies it, but he eats steadily beside Yuuri. All he had spurned was the center chair, the Lord Commander’s chair, instead claiming the one to the left, the one Yuuri had intended to take for himself so as to hide his scars.

The only blessing that Yuuri is afforded is that Viktor eschews nearly all the pomp and ceremony that mark most feasts at King’s Landing. That Yuuri had never missed, the extravangance of it, the formality. In the capital, he’d been unable to hide in the back the dining hall, Viktor wanting him close to the royal table, and Yuri too, and even if they hadn’t, his position as Yuri’s sword master demanded such a place of prominence. 

At the thought of Yuri, Yuuri closes his eyes. Had he kept up with his training? Yuuri had been unable to say goodbye before he left, unable even to send a letter. He hadn’t wanted to chance Viktor finding out and stopping him before he reached the Wall, and then when he had reached it, his life before had ceased. He was no longer Yuuri of House Katsuki, the young lord of Hasetsu Isle. He was a man of the Night’s Watch, from that day forward until his last.

But now Viktor was here. His old life was here.

In a fashion, at least. The dissonance between the old Viktor that Yuuri had preserved in memory and the new one now here at the Wall stuns Yuuri nearly beyond belief. He can’t not look, he can’t not stare, his eyes opening and sliding sidelong toward Viktor once more. Blessedly, he speaks with Alliser, the First Ranger, who sits to his left, so Yuuri can look his fill without being seen. The change in Viktor is startling. From snowfall to ice shard, starshine to moonlight. Viktor had always been intelligent, had always been dignified, but he’d been mercurial too, whimsical and mischievious, as quick to smile as he was with his sword. Now the weight of the crown grounds him. He is still not of this world, that had not changed, but he no longer flitted through it. He strode, his head held high and his eyes intent in their focus and keen in their assessment.

How disappointing, Yuuri thinks, the image he must present to Viktor now. Four years at the Wall and Yuuri knows he bears every one threefold. Worn and scarred and nearly wild, his beard uneven and his hair too long, clad in heavy furs and heavier blacks, Yuuri must look monstrous, kin to the dark beasts that frighten young children in their dreams. And Yuuri’s born the years, he’s born the danger, the steady advance of death toward the Wall, but he can’t bear the thought of how horribly he’s changed, not with Viktor beside him now, even more exquisite and divine than before. His breath catches in his throat and his hands clench, but before he can attempt to steady himself, Viktor suddenly turns toward him and he sees.

They stare at each other in the dim light of the hall. Behind Yuuri, Seung-Gil drones on about the current grain stores of the Watch. Makka stirs on the floor, curled as near he can between Viktor and Yuuri. The men murmur beyond, swapping tales of boldness and bravery with the small retinue that accompanied Viktor north. But all Yuuri sees is Viktor, all he can see is Viktor, captivated as he’s always been by him, right from the first moment that he spied the young prince with the shimmering silver hair, crowned in blue roses, at his first tourney. 

If Yuuri hadn’t been looking, he may have missed the slight widening of Viktor’s eyes, the way his lips part ever so slightly. But he is looking. He’s looking and he sees. Then Viktor shifts his gaze and glances at the men gathered in the hall. His expression settles, his eyes narrowing and his lips going flat, but before Yuuri can parse what that means, Viktor pushes his chair back from the table and stands.

The hall goes silent as he does. All eyes turn toward him. Viktor says nothing a moment, his gaze still sweeping the crowd, then he speaks. “I thank you for your generosity with this feast. I know that your stores are limited, even with the renewed supply runs of the last year. More supplies are en route and should arrive within the month. This includes more men, craftsmen and experienced fighters to help prepare for the war with the dead. And to ensure you have all you need, I intend to learn firsthand of the dangers that you face. Starting now.” Viktor pauses long enough to turn toward Yuuri. “Lord Commander, I should like for you to show me this wild from atop the Wall.” 

Yuuri blinks once and then again, thrown by the sudden address. All eyes swing toward him, awaiting his response. His heart starts to pound at the thought of the long ride to the top of the Wall, trapped in the lift with Viktor. At least they would not be alone, Seung-Gil and perhaps Alliser accompanying them to explain what lies beyond the Wall. And Georgi, too, the head of Viktor’s Kingsguard and everpresent at his side. Conversation could not veer to the personal or to the past then. Viktor would remain the King of Westeros and Yuuri the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Nothing else. Nothing more. 

Certain in this, Yuuri stands and turns toward Seung-Gil. “Tell Minami to prep the life.”

*

He’s a fool. Yuuri’s a fool, first, last, and always.

The lift rises, carrying no one but Viktor and himself. Viktor had dismissed the rest at the doors, no explanation given, just a polite smile and a clear dismissal, and Yuuri’s fate was sealed. What good would protesting have done? It would have merely sown needless discord, and they needed unity to prevail against the dead. So Yuuri, heart in his throat, had followed.

Now the North recedes as the lift ascends. Yuuri stands stiff and stares beyond the gate, breaking protocol by placing his back to Viktor. But to face him… Yuuri swallows at the thought and his hand tightens on the pommel of his sword. He thought he had been prepared. Since the moment he had first read the letter from Viktor that proclaimed his intent to come to the Wall, Yuuri had striven to prepare himself, to steel himself against the imminent return of his first and only love. But all of Yuuri’s efforts were for naught, smashed utterly at first glance and then just now in the hall, so he stands stiff and stares beyond the gate, breaking propriety but maintaining sanity.

In other circumstances, the view would soothe Yuuri, the Northern snow sparkling in the setting winter sun, the pale expanse peppered with the lush green of the pines and enveloped by the dark blue sky. Despite all he’s endured, the snow still fascinates Yuuri, the clime of Hasetsu too warm for any wintery precipitation. Yuuri wishes it would soothe now, but the silence behind him crushes any peace that it might afford, so he stands and he stares and he waits.

The Viktor of old would have burst by now and bombarded the silence with a barrage of words. Yet the King holds a patience that the Prince lacked, so the quiet persists, broken only by the rattle and clanks of the chain that draw the lift on. 

Yuuri swallows again and tightens his grip on his sword. He’s being foolish, so foolish. Though he may quail, the Lord Commander may not. Too many lives depend on him for one to hold such sway, so he breathes in and then out and then prepares to turn, but the slide of a boot stills him before he can, shattering the quiet.

Yuuri expects Viktor to step beside him, but he doesn’t. He steps _behind_ Yuuri instead, close, too close, too close for protocol, for a King and the Lord Commander, but too close for propriety too, for a man long engaged to another and the love that threatened the land. Yuuri focuses on this, on the reason he fled to the Wall, the reason he joined the Night’s Watch, the reason he took their vows, _night gathers and now my watch begins, it shall not end until my death_ , but then he feels Viktor touch his hand, the one still clenched around his sword, and all thought stops.

“You kept the wolf.”

The words, like the touch, like the proximity, breach propriety with their intimacy. Yuuri closes his eyes, but he cannot stop the onslaught of memory, these soft tones reserved only for him, for the nights he spent with Viktor in Petersburg and the moments they snatched from prying public eyes in the Red Keep. And now here, in a rusted lift at the edge of the wild, at the edge of the world for most. Perhaps here is the only place where such a breach could occur.

Eyes still closed and voice pitched as low as Viktor’s, Yuuri murmurs, “Yes.”

The silence returns, the touch lingers, the lift rises, the top nears, and below, far below, Yuuri hears Makkachin howl.

“Good.”

At this, Yuuri opens his eyes. Viktor removes his hand, but he does not step back, not even as the lift arrives at the top of the Wall. Yuuri hears his men approach to open the exit gate. He, at least, must be seen acting according to form, so taking a deep breath, he turns. 

The wind whips this high up the Wall. Normally Yuuri endures the nuisance without complaint, but now he curses the wind for it whips at Viktor, at his hair, and exposes for the first time since Viktor arrived the full power of his gaze. And it had always been heady, Viktor’s eyes on him. It had been thrilling and seductive and heartwarming and supportive. Now it astounds Yuuri and it shatters his hope that they could just be the King and the Lord Commander here, nothing more, nothing else, for it is not the King that stares at Yuuri so, it is Viktor, and he does not look at the Lord Commander, he looks at Yuuri, he looks as no one has for four long years, and Yuuri cannot breathe before it, he cannot think, he cannot be, not what he must, what he vowed to be when he kneeled before the heart tree four years ago, heartsick yet resolved to save Viktor and the realm, to save Viktor _from_ the realm, from whatever retaliation he might face for declining the alliance with the Westerlands, needed for stability, for prosperity, in order to marry Yuuri.

The thought shakes Yuuri from his stupor and renews his resolve. They must be the King and the Lord Commander, they cannot be Viktor and Yuuri, not if Viktor’s alliance with the Westerlands is to hold. Though all the men that Viktor had brought may be loyal to him, it would not be out of possibility for Jean Jacques to send a spy to Mole’s Town and to gather information there, so he must remain firm, he must remain true, _the watcher on the walls, the shield that guards the realms of men_.

Including Viktor.

Yuuri pulls in a breath and prepares to reassert the boundary between himself and Viktor, but the gate opens before he can speak. His mouth snaps shut as, beyond Viktor, he spots Pyle and Quent, the two men on watch at this section of the Wall. 

No such hesitation befalls Viktor. He tilts his head to the side, drawing Yuuri’s eyes back toward him, and still, after everything, all the years and the leagues between them, spinning Yuuri about, he says, body too close and voice too soft, “Show me your wild.” 

He holds Yuuri’s gaze a moment longer then finally retreats, stepping back and spinning toward the gate in one fluid movement. Heart pounding, Yuuri watches him stride from the lift, nodding to both Pyle and Quent as he passes them by. 

All Yuuri can do is follow, the sea in perpetual thrall to the moon.

*


End file.
